When they had somewhat appeased their appetites Frank turned to Snap.
'Now, old chap, if you don't mind, explain all this mystery to us. The last thing we know is that you dropped out of the skies and gave your life for ours. We aren't likely to forget that,' said Frank.
'You bet!' remarked Wharton with an emphasis which made Towzer drop the bone he was picking into the ashes.
'Oh, that's all skittles,' replied Snap disingenuously.
'I expect I must just have slipped off that ring somehow. You know I never was much good on a trapeze or anything of that sort at school.'
No one contradicted him. It wasn't necessary. Even the eloquence of an Irish Queen's Counsel could not induce boys to disbelieve their eyes.
'You remember,' he continued, 'what a fog there was when I tumbled out. I had just said, I remember, that I could make out the tops of the teepees through it. Well, so I ought to have done. We were quite close over the top of them, and when I fell, as luck would have it, I came bang down on to the side of one of them, bounced off again like a new ball from the wall of a racquet-court, and lay, I suppose, stunned, for some time on the grass. When I came to I was a little muddled, and what puzzled me more than anything when I began to understand things at all was that I was free, no thongs on my limbs, and not an Indian in sight. I tried my limbs one after another, in a deadly fright lest I should be unable to lift one of them, but they seemed all right, or at least I could use them. When I got up I felt, of course, an ache in every muscle, but nothing was broken, and, although even now I would rather sit on an air-cushion than on a pine-log, I really hurt myself very little by my fall; of course, if it had not been for the side of that friendly teepee, I should have been jam by this time.'
'Well, but, Snap, what about the Indians?' exclaimed Frank.
'As for them,' said his friend, 'I could not understand at first, and, although it seemed very unreasonable, kept suspecting a trap for some time. Of course, what really happened was this. When we heard the shouting of the warriors as the balloon bore down upon their camp, it was not a gathering cry which we heard, but the sound of a panic. They saw, not the balloon with their four enemies in it just going to drop into their hands, but they saw, or thought that they saw, the great white spirit of the Lone Mountain, incensed by their insolence in approaching too near to his throne, swooping down through the mists of evening like an eagle-owl upon his prey, and—well, they bolted!'
'That's it, Snap! that's it, sonny! You've read 'em like a book,' ejaculated Wharton. 'Do you remember as I said I couldn't understand them Injuns making such a tarnation row when they saw us a-coming?'